How a Mouse Helped Save My Sanity Over Winter Break {and a Giveaway!}

You will receive an email from me with instructions for obtaining your 12-month subscription to ABCmouse.com.

The first few days of my kids winter break from school was ah-mazing. I loved not having to get up at a certain time (even though they have yet to learn the value of "sleeping in"). I looked to my Pinterest boards for cutesy ideas for holiday crafts. And the excitement as Christmas approached was enough to give me butterflies. Between cups of hot cocoa and spending time with family, we made so many lovely memories.

Then...bam! Christmas was over and the excitement began to dwindle. Post-holiday pregnancy-enhanced exhaustion set in. And the cold. The brutal cold that seemed tolerable days earlier with twinkling Christmas lights to distract us suddenly seemed to suffocate us. There were few reasons to bundle up and brave the frigid temps so we ended up staying in. All. Day. Long.

And because we didn't want to open all the new toys they received here and risk losing pieces in the few short weeks we'll have left here at Nana and Grandpa's before we move, we boxed most of their Christmas gifts up to send down to the new house with daddy leaving little for the boys to do to avoid boredom.

Rather than counting down the days until Christmas, it shifted to how many days until the kids go back to school???? The snow and ice were thick outside, while their poor minds were surely melting inside from the amount of television and MineCraft they were exposed to.

That's where a little gray mouse came to the rescue!

A few months ago, Aiden, 5, reminded me about ABCmouse.com - an educational website he had utilized frequently as part of his curriculum based learning at his preschool the prior year. We logged on and signed up for a 3-month subscription this past fall. Both he and my 6 year old Ethan would take turns "playing" on the site. While I try to limit their time on technology (iPads, my phone, watching tv, etc.), the quality of the content on ABCmouse.com left me feeling like they were actually learning and not just playing.

On ABCmouse.com you can create a "user" for each child, and customize the content based on their level of learning/grade. Within that portal, they have access to all kinds of educational content - from e-books to math facts, spelling games to science activities. For each activity completed, they earn tickets that they can then use in a virtual store to purchase novelty items within the site (not real products).

Plus, all of their activity is logged and can be accessed, monitored and customized further using parental controls.

My kids genuinely love this site - and the best part is that they are enhancing their learning, which I think any parent would agree is well worth it! Especially when extended breaks from the school environment leaves you feeling like they might forget everything they've learned so far that year.

Want to check it out for yourself? ABCmouse.com is giving one lucky More Skees Please reader a 12-month subscription! Just follow the super simple steps below -- a winner will be randomly chosen at the conclusion of the contest on Sunday, January 12th.

DISCLOSURE: I was so happy with this product that I reached out to ABCmouse.com asking if we could partner on this project. In addition to the 1-year subscription for one of my readers, ABCmouse.com was kind enough to provide me with a 1-year subscription for myself as well. With that said, as always, all opinions in this post are genuine and my own.

18 comments
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We use ABCMouse.com already and my 4 year old loves it! He spends most of his time taking care of his "pets" and getting tickets by completing lessons to get more stuff for the pets. I think he's up to 3 hamsters and a bunch of fish. Plus I like that I can make it "large screen" so he can't open any other windows since it requires the password to remove it. He has a great time and like you said, it's not just more games; its learning and he can do most of it on his own.

My son has just starting asking to learn to read so we've of course been working on that! And he always LOVES playing games on the computer, he would love the whole thing, puzzles, animals, letters! Thanks for this great contest!